Blond Ambition: A Multifaceted Jewel

When Jewel’s debut album began sailing past the 8-million sales mark a few years ago, it was tempting to think that lots of people bought it as a parlor game.

To win, all you had to do was play the CD for friends and see who could point to the most embarrassing or pretentious line in her mostly oh-so-sensitive songs.

My favorite went, “You can be Henry Miller and I’ll be Anais Nin/Except this time it’ll be even better/We’ll stay together in the end.”

Jewel was just 20 when she recorded that album, “Pieces of You,” and she had written most of the songs years earlier--and the youthfulness showed.

Even she gritted her teeth over some of the album’s images and rhymes during interviews--and she promised to do better next time.

She didn’t keep the promise--either on the follow-up album, last year’s “Spirit,” or during Saturday’s concert before an estimated 9,300 adoring young fans at the Coors Amphitheatre.

The only revelation in the concert was Jewel’s own restless ambition, one that raised even more questions about her artistic purpose and depth.

Every generation needs its Joni Mitchell, someone who can help make sense of the mysteries of life and relationships--and millions of her fans feel they have found their personal guide in Jewel.

In a commercial pop scene dominated these days by such hollow mega-sellers as Mariah Carey and Shania Twain, you can even understand their allegiance.

At least Jewel, who is now 25, tries to address real issues.

The problem is that she exhibits such limited imagination and insight as a writer that she reminds you more of another of Mitchell’s contemporaries from the ‘60s and ‘70s: Melanie.

Like Jewel, Melanie was a songwriter with impressive vocal skills, but with such a one-dimensional viewpoint that she became a flower-power caricature.

Jewel is too driven to be typecast. Indeed, she seemed intent Saturday on broadening her sensitive, folk-singer image.

She worked hard at injecting more aggressiveness into her vocals and she even strapped on an electric guitar at one point to show that she could rock hard.

Unfortunately, Jewel, whose tour included a stop Sunday at Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre, didn’t seem convincing in any of the roles in what was a homecoming show for the northern San Diego County resident. The plaintive wails in “Deep Water” felt like something she lifted from Janis Joplin, and the rock ‘n’ roll turn was void of genuine passion.

And it didn’t make it any easier to think of her as a serious artist when she punctuated so many of the songs with the sexy, camera-ready moves that have helped make Twain a star.

Backed by a five-piece band that included singer-songwriter Steve Poltz on guitar (he was also the show’s opening act), Jewel showed extraordinary vocal command, but it was a demonstration of technique rather than emotion.

Listening to her sudden changes in vocal direction and pitch, you were reminded of the way a synthesizer player can go from, say, a drum sound to a cello sound by simply pushing a button.

Perhaps stung by all the complaints about her lightweight music, Jewel tried to stretch one of her most popular numbers, “Who Will Save Your Soul,” into a torturous, gimmick-filled marathon piece. Though designed to show growth, the result was merely indulgent.

Ironically, Jewel was most convincing during a solo acoustic sequence when she stopped trying to impress us and, instead, tried to touch us with the delicate music that made her a star in the first place.

But musical purity doesn’t seem to be her main priority. The impression you got Saturday of Jewel, who has already written a book of poetry and branched into acting, was her overriding drive. Forget Joni Mitchell and Melanie, she may turn out to be the most ambitious pop figure since Madonna.